Frankfurt

WHO STOLE
?
THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER 2019 VISIT PW AND BOOKBRUNCH AT HALL 6.0 D40

ROBERT KIYOSAKI AND EDWARD SIEDLE

MY PENSION?
HOW YOU CAN STOP
THE LOOTING

Netflix sees itself as

publishing’s partner
Is Netflix a friend or foe to the book business? That
question, writes Ed Nawotka, was addressed by the Global
50 CEO Talk 2019, which featured a conversation with
Kelly Luegenbiehl, VP International Originals of Netflix,
hosted by publishing consultant Ruediger Wischenbart and
with the editors of global trade journals.
“If the Frankfurt community is a family, then we are
welcoming a new family member,” said Wischenbart, who
opened the conversation by asking Luegenbiehl to define
Netflix. “It is a streaming services endeavouring to bring
great stories to people around the world and remove all
barriers,” she replied.
Kelly Luegenbiehl and Ruediger Wischenbart
Luegenbiehl parried a variety of questions, ranging from
whether or not Netflix was using computers and
algorithms to analyse texts – “No, I am not a computer,” demands. Decisions about content were based on classic
she joked – to whether or not Netflix considered publishers storytelling, and not on data or analytics. For her part, she
“poor relations”, to which she said, “You guys started that, said she was passionate in her search for more stories
not me.” featuring strong roles for women and by women creators.
Netflix, Wischenbart pointed out, spent in excess of $10 Asked what has surprised her in her role, Luegenbiehl
billion on content development every year – the global replied: “What is exciting is just how quickly audiences
revenue of Penguin Random House is about $3.5bn. have found content to enjoy from outside their own
Luegenbiehl said: “We look at the publishers and editors as countries and languages. The great opportunity of what I
partners, that is the best word. For us, the more do at Netflix is to bring local stories to a global audience.”
collaboration the better… Our goal is to bring books to life As for what is next for Netflix, Luegenbiehl said: “We’re
on the screen in a way it has not been done before.” looking to develop our first series from sub-Saharan Africa
She noted that the company was driven by audience and would love that to come from a book.”

Guest of Honour Amazon Crossing

Norwegian Celebrating ten
authors open years
Copyright
programme Page 4
Directive
Page 3
– this is only
stage one
Page 4
END-TO-END
RIGHTS SALES
MANAGEMENT
ENABLED
BY 3 APPS

Manage open
claims, create
invoices, and
track payments
 THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER 2019 FRANKFURT SHOW DAILY

GoH programme opens Day 2 highlights

Norwegian authors Herborg Wassmo (left) and Thorvald 9.30 EIBF ANNUAL CONFERENCE
Steen were on stage at the official opening of the Room Tulip, Hall 5.0, level 5.01

Norwegian guest of honour programme, which was kicked 10.00 ASK THE EXPERT: THE NEW LEGAL LANDSCAPE,
off with a speech by Norway’s Minister of Culture, Trine RIGHTS AND LICENCES, METADATA, ETC
Skei Grande. Business Club meeting area (via Hall 4.0)

The minister said that Norway was “a long, tall country 11.00 GUEST OF HONOUR CANADA 2020 PRESS
of fjords and and ice but also a nation of art and culture”. CONFERENCE
She demanded more support for diversity, saying: “Cultural Pavilion

experience is not limited by borders, culture is by nature 11.30 ONE OF US – EXTREMISM AND POLARIZATION.
international, and cultural collateral enhances our cooperation, ÅSNE SEIERSTAD IN CONVERSATION
it makes us better as individuals and as a society.” Pavilion, main stage

The two authors recollected how they came to be writers 13.00 KINDLE STORYTELLER AWARDS
and the inspiration for some of their key works, Wassmo Agora

with her Tora and Dina trilogies, and Steen with poetry 14.00 ASTRID LINDGREN AWARDS NOMINEES ANNOUNCED
cycle The Fire. Frankfurt Kids – Stage Foyer (5.1/6.1)

On Tuesday Norway’s Crown Prince Haakon, Crown 14.00 FRANKFURT AUDIO SUMMIT
Princess Mette-Marit and Prime Minister Erna Solberg Room Dimension (Hall 4.2)

visited the Norwegian Guest of Honour exhibition at the 17.30 RECEPTION FOR INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHERS
Pavilion. Pavilion

INSIDE:
LENNY PICKER RUTH HOWELLS
NICHOLAS AXE READING TAX
LEMANN Q&A 7 24
JO HENRY CHAD POST
EUROPEAN EBOOK 4 QUESTIONS FOR
MARKET 10 FSG 26
LONG LITT WOON NICHOLAS JONES
Q&A FLASH BANG
12 WALLOP 28
ANDREW JULIE VUONG
ALBANESE DIVERSITY
To contact Frankfurt Show Daily at the LEGAL LATEST 14 30
Fair, please visit us at the Publishers
Weekly stand in Hall 6.0, D40. MICHAEL BRIDGET SHINE
BHASKAR TRAINING
Publisher: Joseph Murray NEW FRONTIERS 16 MATTERS 34
BookBrunch MD: Jo Henry
Editors: Andrew Albanese, Nicholas Clee, Neill Denny PHILIP STONE STORYTEL
Reporter: Ed Nawotka DISCOVERABILITY TELLANDER Q&A
18 36
Project Coordinator: Deena Ali
Layout and Production: Heather McIntyre CHRIS KENNEALLY MARK MCCALLUM
Editorial Coordinator (UK): Marian Sheil Tankard BOOKS ACCESSIBLE
For a FREE six month trial to Publishers Weekly go to RETHOUGHT 20 CONTENT 38
publishersweekly.com/fbf19
DANIEL KRAMB STEPHEN
Subscribe to BookBrunch via www.bookbrunch.co.uk CUNDILL PRIZE MESQUITA
or email editor@bookbrunch.co.uk 22 TRAVEL GUIDES 42

3
 FRANKFURT SHOW DAILY THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER 2019

Copyright directive –
more work ahead
Whether it’s trade deals, or Brexit, uncertainty is a prominent
theme at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair – and a panel of
experts, moderated by Copyright Clearance Center’s Chris
Kenneally, told attendees that the uncertainty extended to
the European copyright arena, writes Andrew Albanese.
In March, the European Parliament approved the
Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, with
the stated intention of promoting “a well-functioning
marketplace for the exploitation of works”. But more work (L to r): Editors Liza Darnton, Gabriella Page-Fort, and
lies ahead, as EU member states must now update their Elizabeth DeNoma of Amazon Crossing at an event marking
national copyright laws by 2021. nearly 10 years of Amazon Crossing, which has published
Swiss attorney Carlo Scollo Lavizzari, from the firm Lenz more than 400 books from 42 countries in 26 languages.
Caemmerer, said: “It is the second stage, if you will. While
the law has been passed, there have been many attempts to The uncertainty, the panellists agreed, could mean a
stop this from the side of big tech, and the acceptance of larger role for licensing. “You know a lot of this discussion
the law is not there yet. There continues to be dialogue is seen as a sort of clash between culture and creativity, and
between the platforms, the large tech companies, and the big tech,” observed former Elsevier general counsel Mark
creative sector, to get to the nitty-gritty: how is this going Seeley, now a public policy consultant. “And I do think
to work?” there’s a big question here about the degree to which
Adding complexity to the matter, Lavizzari explained, licensing activity and real world discussions will take place.
not all EU member states were required to adopt the Certainly, the directive suggests that they should.”
directive’s provisions at once. France, for example, has Of course, Brexit hangs over the process as well. Should the
already adopted into law the “fair play” provision that UK break from the EU, whether the UK would adopt all or part
would provide publishers compensation from content of the copyright directive is an open, and complex question.
aggregators – and that, he said, had already led to “an
exchange of fire” between newspapers and search engines.
While the law moved Europe closer to its goal of a digital
single market, the reality was that the single market could
Face at Frankfurt
remain somewhat fragmented from country to country.
Karen Boersma, publisher, Owlkids Books
Turkey condemned
Turkey’s invasion of Northern Syria was condemned by
exiled Turkish writer Asli Erdogan, who was speaking at an
event celebrating freedom of expression held at Norway’s
guest of honour pavilion.
“There is an incredible national hysteria in Turkey that
can compare with Nazi Germany,” she said. “They think
they are being attacked and national hysteria combined
with militarism is a dangerous combination. I am scared of
what will happen in Syria - they [Turkey] are planning
something horrible there.”
The event was opened by the mayor of Stavanger
Christine Sagen Helgo; the Norwegian city was one of the
founding members of the Icorn international cities of
Karen Boersma
refuge programme in 2006, and hosts its secretariat. Some
70 cities are part of the network, which has provided 230 “The global economy is a bit slow and we feel people may
artist and writers with sanctuary so far. Erdogan has been be cautious in their rights purchasing. But as a Canadian,
offered a refuge through the scheme. She was joined on we are especially excited about gearing up for next year,
stage by exiled Iranian cartoonist Ali Dorani. when we are guest of honour.”

4
 FRANKFURT SHOW DAILY
Rights meeting focuses on China
A trio of Chinese publishing executives confirmed what many
have come to believe is the case: that Chinese publishers
have actively turned inward and are deliberately slowing
rights purchases, writes Ed Nawotka. “The focus is less on
acquiring more books, but on acquiring books of high quality,”
said Yanping Jiang, CEO of Beijing OpenBook, as part of
the annual Frankfurt Rights meeting, held on Tuesday
afternoon. “An increasing number of these high quality
titles are being produced by Chinese authors,” she added.
That said, there remains a strong appetite for translated
and foreign books in China, with some 13.5% of all books
published there annually being sourced from abroad. Twenty-
three per cent of sales by value and 20% of units sold are of
books by foreign authors. “We estimate this market in foreign
books to be worth approximately $3 billion,” said Jiang.
China and its vast book market remains an aspiration
for many Western publishers. The collected group of more
than 100 rights directors, agents, and other publishing
representatives were treated to a crash course in the market,
which is valued at nearly $13 billion USD, according to
OpenBook, with sales growth of some 11% in the last year.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, audiobook sales have exploded,
with sales up 42.9% over the past year; commensurate
with this has been a 24% rise in online sales, and a nearly
12% decrease in sales in physical bookstores.
Face at Frankfurt
Miriam Gabbai, CEO, Callis Editora, Sao
Paulo, Brazil
Miriam Gabbai
“We are delighted that we sold our first books to Germany
and to the United States – after 27 years in business, it
turns out perseverance really pays off!”
6
THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER 2019
Yanping Jiang addressing the meeting
Jiang noted that children’s book sales remained the
strongest sector, and cited the success of author Yanf
Hongying, who is the country’s bestselling author and has
sold some 160 million copies of her books, which help
children deal with their feelings.
Following Jiang were Wuping Zhao, deputy chief editor
and v-p of Shanghai Translation Publishing, who noted that
there were some 16,000 translations published in China last
year. “Many of them were titles from the public domain,” he
said, noting that since copyright protections in China last for
50 years after an author’s death, “you will see many different
translations of the same book, like The Little Prince [by
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry] and books by Ernest Hemingway”.
Among the most popular translated fiction titles in China
were books by Japanese crime writer Keigo Higashino and
Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini.
Guangyu Liu, rights director of China Renmin University
Press - which is one of China’s largest, publishing 3,000
titles per year - emphasized that a strong sales track record
was an important factor in helping a university press
opting to pick up a title for translations. “Books that won’t
sell over 5,000 copies are not interesting to us,” she said.
Cundill Prize shortlist
The three finalists for the 2019 Cundill History Prize, worth
US$75,000 to the winner and administered by McGill
University, were announced inToronto last night. They are
Mary Fulbrook for Reckonings: Legacies of Nazi Persecution
and the Quest for Justice (OUP); Jill Lepore for These Truths:
A History of the United States (Norton); and Julia Lovell for
Maoism: A Global History (Knopf US, Bodley Head UK).
Each author receives $10,000.The winner, to be
announced on 14 November at the Cundill History Prize
Gala at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, will receive
$75,000 in total.
See feature, p22
 THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER 2019

Nicholas
QA Lemann: Time
Editorial and production
to organise
services for every stage
As publishers gather
at the 2019 Frankfurt
of the content life cycle
Book Fair, perhaps the
most challenging
market factor facing
American publishers is art & design
uncertainty. Amid
editorial
increasing political translations
and economic anxiety,
rising nationalism,
widening inequality, accessibility
management
and a troubling loss
in faith in key
photo: Eileen Barroso

production
institutions that have
sustained us for so
long, understanding
the challenges America,
digital print
and the world, faces is
Nicholas Lemann
the key to navigating
them. Lenny Picker recently caught up with New Yorker
staff writer Nicholas Lemann, whose brilliant new book,
Transaction Man: The Rise of the Deal and the Decline of
the American Dream, examines a century of American
political and economic history, retracing steps that led to
today’s inequities and uncertainty, while sounding an
optimistic note that things can change for the better.

How would you summarise the state of affairs today?

What we’re seeing is stubbornly rising economic inequality
– and not just in America, but globally. There’s a sense of
economic insecurity that is being expressed both culturally
Publish Smarter
and in the tremendous political dissatisfaction that has
effectively blown up the political centre throughout the
Western world, evidently. What I focus on in the book is Intelligent automation,
how, in America, we went from having faith – perhaps too
much faith – in big institutions as the carriers of a good accelerated workflows,
society, to looking to transactional values – fluidity,
markets, change and efficiency – as the things that will digital learning solutions,
bring us not just a better business environment, but a
better society. and more
For example, I tell the story of how over the last quarter
of the 20th century, Wall Street went from being small and

Hall 4.2, L37

disempowered to being in the driver’s seat economically,
culturally and politically all over the world – including
establishing its dominion over large corporations. But
when that happened, a bunch of social functions that had
been loaded onto corporations – healthcare, job security,
pensions, for example – started to be taken away, because
Continues on page 8 g cenveopublisherservices.com
@CenveoPublisher
 FRANKFURT SHOW DAILY THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER 2019

f Continued from page 7 The other thing is,

they weren’t market-oriented enough. It’s my view that this what I hope will
is the source of a lot of the negative, angry, dislocated happen – and if my
feelings among parts of the middle class. book plays a part, I’d
be thrilled – is for
What surprised you the most as you researched and wrote people to understand
the book? how important
I was surprised by how much the economic structure of the institutions are to a
United States has changed, and how big a role government good society, and to
played in those changes. I tended to believe, like a lot of lose the assumption
people, that these changes were the inevitable result of that if you tear down
various things happening in the world, being pushed by existing institutions
larger forces. But these changes were also the result of the world will kind of
fairly specific decisions that people in power had made, automatically get
that I could research and track down. better, or that you
have to tear down
In the book, you refer to the “too big to jail” phenomenon institutions to make
identified after the 2008 financial collapse, when no high- progress. I believe
ranking executives at major financial institutions were held that having more
accountable for their roles in the collapse. Do you think
“I was surprised by respect for
things today would look different had some of these people how much the institutions and
been held accountable? community life as a
So, I’m not a big believer in that. There’s an old saying:
economic structure kind of basis for
“The real scandal isn’t what’s illegal, it’s what’s legal.” So, of the United States giving people a good
in the book, I am really trying to draw people’s attention, society would be a
not to the fact that nobody went to jail – even though
has changed, and big step forward.
nobody went to jail and there’s clearly some cases where how big a role And I am optimistic
people could have gone to jail – but instead to the fact that that can happen
the great majority of the activity that caused the financial government played because I think the
crisis, and the economic and political disaster that followed in those changes.” needle moved so far
was legal. And it was legal because it had been made legal the other way that
in stages through the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s. you can just feel it moving back.
To me, that’s the real story. Much more than individuals,
this is a book about systems. It has individuals in it, yes. At the end of the book, you write about the importance of
But the argument of the book isn’t that if you get the quirks reviving pluralism. Can you talk about that?
out, and punish the crooks, you’ll fix the system – it’s that I explore three, big, sweeping ideas from three different
you have to fix the system. In my view, the economy wasn’t eras. One is a kind of corporation, institution-based society
brought down by a few bad apples, it was brought down by with big government as a check on big corporations. The
political choices and activities that had only been made second is the fluid, transactional, market-based Wall Street-
legal fairly recently, and had previously been forbidden. dominated society. And the third is an internet network-
That’s why I believe the economy needs to be sort of dominated society.
remade at the systemic level. In all of these cases, part of the problem is that there’s this
one perfect-sounding idea that’s supposed to solve everything,
Do you think that can that happen? We’re a year out from but which always leaves things out, to great peril.
the presidential election in the US, and with the What attracts me about pluralism is that it assumes a
deterioration of so many public institutions and the income messier society that honours the processes of democracy –
inequity that’s resulted, is there any basis for optimism like voting and organising – but doesn’t have a big, reigning
going forward? idea for how society should be structured. Pluralism
Yeah, I think so. First of all, there is a widespread feeling, imagines a society where power is more distributed, and
globally, that the political economic order that prevailed where difference is honoured, and where the process of
between the 20th and 21st centuries just is not working. leading the society is kind of messy and political instead of
It’s not producing a good life for enough people. It’s not neat and orderly.
producing enough political consensus. Something’s really Pluralism is built to honour essentially minority views
wrong. So that’s a huge step forward from the conventional and things that are outside the consensus. I think that’s
wisdom of 20 years ago, and that is a kind of precondition important and attractive. If you’re being left out, if you’re
to change. I think that is very encouraging – although not part of the consensus, in a pluralistic society, you
very messy. organise and change the system.  ■

8
 Hall 4.2 Stand K35
Ideas that move the
world need solutions
that transform content
< >
www.dataconversionlaboratory.com
THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER 2019
The digital consumer
The sales patterns of ebook and audiobooks vary considerably
by market, a new report has revealed, writes Jo Henry. The
Digital Consumer Book Barometer 2019, which is based on
ebook sales data provided by leading distributors in Canada,
Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain, as well as foreign-
language imports, for the years 2016-2018, both monitors and
analyses the impact of key parameters like season, price points
and genres, looking at the impact on both units and revenue.
The German ebook market is generally relatively steady
throughout the year, with ebooks accounting for between 8-9% of
volume and value every month, though with a slight increase in
value share – to around 10% – in December each year. The pattern
for the Canadian market is similar: again the ebook share peaks,
in both volume and value, in December/January each year. Here,
however, the peak has been declining each year since 2016/17,
with 2017/18 slightly smaller, and 2018/19 smaller again, with
ebooks only accounting for around 10% of the book market
in the latest period. The Canadian ebook market in 2018 – as
monitored by this report – also saw secondary peaks in March and
July/August that weren’t experienced in the previous two years.
The other three markets covered show greater variance month
by month. In Italy, the unit percentage of the book market taken by
ebooks rose to more than 10.5% in July/August in both 2017 and
2018, but dropped back to around 7-8% in February, March
and April, with a second, somewhat smaller, peak in December/
January. The Spanish market saw between 7-9% of volume and
value accounted for by ebooks for much of 2016-2018, but
with a huge peak – more than 13% – in November 2017.
The Dutch ebook market shows rather less variance, where this
format accounts for around 7-8% of the book market through
most of the year. Ebooks do, however, take a larger market share in
summer, increasing to more than 13% of sales in August each year.
There are variances too in the pricing “sweet” spot between
these countries. The main European price points for ebooks cluster
around €8-9.99. The Italian market shows a heavy concentration
of ebooks being bought in the €9-9.99 price bracket, accounting
for more than a quarter of all ebook revenues in Italy. There is
a secondary concentration in Italy in the €2-2.99 price bracket,
with ebooks being sold for this amount accounting for nearly
Market share of audiobook genre by revenue, 2016-Q1, 2019 (Bookwire, Germany)
100%
80%
Educational
60% Non-fiction
Science fiction
40% Romance
Fantasy
20% Thrillers
Children’s &YA
Fiction
0%
2016 2017 2018 Q1, 2019
©by Ruediger(at)wischenbart.com 2019
 THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER 2019 Hall 4.2 Stand K35
Life cycle (by revenue) for top ebooks in first year of publication:
Germany, The Netherlands, Canada

25%

20%

15%

10%

5%

0%
M1 M2 M3 M4 M5 M6 M7 M8 M9 M10 M11 M12
Germany The Netherlands Canada

©by Ruediger(at)wischenbart.com 2019

10% of revenue, significantly more than for other markets. In

the Netherlands, the secondary sweet spot is in the €4-4.99
price point, while for Spain almost 15% of revenue comes
from ebooks in the €7-7.99 bracket.
The ebook market in Canada has higher price points and fewer
peaks. Ebooks priced between €18-18.99 account for a tenth of all
ebook income, with price points below €9 relatively unimportant.
And price points too are very much affected by the ebook genre.
In the Spanish market, romance ebooks tend to be sold at a very
low price, with more than 15% of revenue for this genre coming
from those priced at between €1-1.99, though there is secondary
peak in the €8-8.99 price bracket. Fiction, by contrast, peaks in
the €10-10.99 price bracket, which accounts for more than 20%
of revenue of this genre in the Spanish market. “Genre” fiction
(thriller/crime and fantasy/sf) mainly falls into a somewhat lower
price band, with around 18% of all sales accounted for by
ebooks priced between €8-8.99. And children’s and YA ebooks
are mainly priced between €6-6.99; this price band accounts
for around a quarter of all revenue for ebooks in this genre.
In addition to the analysis of ebook sales performances in these
five markets, the report looks at audiobooks sales too. In Germany,
the bulk of audiobook revenue comes from two genres, general
fiction and crime/thriller, which together accounted for more than
half of the market by value in 2016. Since then, the market share of
these two dominant genres has dropped somewhat, with increases You have the answer –
deliver great experiences
seen in market share taken by non-fiction and children’s/YA.
Each of these four genres accounted for around 20% of the

and lead the digital

German audiobook market in value terms in Q1 2019.
An examination of the sales cycles of top selling ebooks in

transformation
each market reveals that the majority of sales are achieved in
months one to three, though interestingly the Dutch market
peaks somewhat later than, say, the Canadian or the German
market. In the Netherlands, the largest proportion of sales for
the bestselling ebooks included in this analysis were achieved
in month three, rather than the first two months.
The data comes from the sponsors of the report, Bookwire,
DeMarque, Libranda and the International Publishing
Distribution Association. Additional data was provided by CB,
Ingram Content Group (including foreign-language imports
data) and Readbox. ■

The Barometer 2019 by Ruediger Wichenbart can be downloaded free of

charge at www.global-ebook.com and at its sponsors’ websites.
Jo Henry is the managing director of BookBrunch.
www.marklogic.com
 FRANKFURT SHOW DAILY THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER 2019

Long Litt Woon: people who have

QA
bought the book not

On mushrooms only for themselves,

but as gifts.

and mourning Mushrooming helped

you find a way back
from despair. Was
After her husband died suddenly, Long Litt Woon found an writing the book
unusual way to help her deal with her grief: she took up helpful too?
mushrooming. Her memoir, The Way Through the Woods: I did not write the
On Mushrooms and Mourning (translated from the book because I
Norwegian by Barbara J Haveland), which describes how thought it would be

Photo: Johs. Bøe

her obsession with mushrooming helped her find new therapeutic, but it has.
meaning in life, became a bestseller in Norway. Nicholas Writing a book forced
Clee talked to Long in the run up to the Fair. me to create a
narrative out of a
This book is a beautiful object, as it was when published in Long Litt Woon difficult experience.
Norway, with two types of ink (black for the mourning T H E WAY T H ROUGH T H E WO OD S
What has surprised
story, brown for the mushroom story) and line drawings. me, though, is that the
Was the production of it always important to you? healing effect of
YES, definitely. I think aesthetics are part of the reading writing is continuing
experience too. My Norwegian publisher, Vigmostad & even after the book
Bjørke, promised that the book would be beautiful, but to has come out. In large
tell you the truth, I did not really believe them. But I am this is because I have
happy to say that they did keep their word. I know of several had so many speaking
Craterellus cornucopioides, Horn of Plenty
Mustatorvisieni
Craterellus cornucopioides
events and at every
The adrenalin rush place, someone
After an evening of theory, the next item on the programme was
a field trip. In Norway, outdoor life is tantamount to a religion, somehow manages to
and Sunday outings in the hills or the forest are almost obliga-
tory. For an outsider, though, such an outing can be anything ask me a question I
but a walk in the park. To the uninitiated, the forest can be a
daunting place. It is alarming to discover, when the same clump have not thought of
of mushrooms shows up for the second time, that you have sim-
ply been going round in circles. It is very easy, I find, to be lured before – which nudges
deeper and deeper into the dark forest and suddenly find one’s
self alone and surrounded by huge trees, with no obvious way me along the path of
21 my new life.

Was the experience of writing

the sections about Eiolf and
about mushrooming different?
Yes and no. Yes, because the
subject matter is different. No,
because I needed to keep an
eye also on writing about both
as any author would and to
see how I could weave my two
journeys together.

What has your life been like

since the book became a hit?
The book has changed my life
completely. I am now a full-
time writer. I am so thankful not only to have a career
change at this point in my life, but because this is the only
thing I want to do from now on. I like alternating between
the different aspects of being a writer – on stage, travelling
and presenting my book on one hand and being the writer
producing the difficult number two book, at home, at my
desk, on the other. ■

12
 FRANKFURT SHOW DAILY
The wheels of justice
In the US courts, a mix of old and new cases portend a
fascinating array of outcomes for the US publishing industry,
writes Andrew Richard Albanese, across a range of sectors.
Cambridge University Press vs. Patton
Yes, still going. First filed in April of 2008 by three academic
publishers – and supported by the Copyright Clearance Center
and the Association of American Publishers (AAP) – the
plaintiffs claim that administrators at Georgia State University
(GSU) are systematically encouraging faculty to use unlicensed
digital copies of course readings (known as e-reserves) as a
no-cost alternative to traditionally licensed course-packs. After
two verdicts against the publishers, and two separate appeals
court remand decisions, the case is back with judge Orinda
Evans for a third try at writing a legal opinion that can pass
muster. But, however the case is ultimately decided, observers
point out that it may not matter much. A lot has changed in
the academic publishing world since 2009, and the court’s
decisions thus far suggest it is highly unlikely this case will
ultimately produce any real clarity about what constitutes fair
use in the academic realm.
Capitol Records vs. ReDigi
This one is over. ReDigi in its first incarnation was an online
service that sought to give consumers the ability to legally resell
their legally purchased iTunes files like they would a used record.
Last year, an appeals court upheld the district court’s finding that
the first sale doctrine, which enables consumers to resell their
legally acquired physical copies of copyrighted works (books,
records, etc.) is limited to “material items”. ReDigi appealed to
the Supreme Court, but in June the high court declined to take
the matter up, putting an end to the case. Publishers are exhaling
a sigh of relief. ReDigi (and other players, including Amazon)
had expressed interest in creating a resale market for ebooks. The
US courts, however, have delivered a clear message: if digital first
sale is going to exist in the US, it will be by an act of Congress.
Chronicle Books et al vs. Audible
By far the most dramatic case in recent years, this action revolves
around Amazon-owned audiobook provider Audible’s plan to
release a feature, called Captions, which would scroll a few words
of an AI-generated transcription alongside a digital audiobook as
it plays in the Audible app. Audible claims the feature is fair use,
because the “snippets” of scrolling text serve as an educational
feature, and don’t impact the market for books. Publishers,
however, say the display of text is a clear rights grab. And at a late
September hearing, a federal judge appeared to agree, appearing
completely unmoved by Audible’s fair use defence. The publishers
are asking the court for a preliminary injunction to keep the
plaintiff publishers works out of Captions, which could be decided
– or settled – any day now. Audible meanwhile has yet to launch
the programme, and now says the programme, whenever it
happens, will be restricted to public domain books until the courts
14
THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER 2019
“Macmillan is not weigh in on whether the
programme is infringing
accused of – if the case ever gets
wrongdoing, but it that far. In recent filings,
Audible has made
is in a tricky spot: noises about settling.
the DoJ is seeking Bernstein et al vs.
an injunction that Cengage
In this case, a group of
would compel textbook authors has
Macmillan to freeze filed a proposed class
action suit against
Snowden’s royalty educational publisher
payments.” Cengage, alleging that
the company’s pivot to
a digital subscription model, Cengage Unlimited, violates
their author agreements and is cheating them out of
royalties. If that claim sounds familiar, it should – it’s the
second such suit in a year. Cengage settled the first suit last
October. Cengage settled the first suit last October. This case,
meanwhile, is just getting going.
Parneros vs. Barnes & Noble
This case has little bearing on the publishing world, except that
it is a spectacle that could very well end up in a high-profile
trial next year, right in the middle of Barnes & Noble’s efforts
to reboot its business following its recent acquisition by Elliot
Management. Barnes & Noble (B&N) CEO Demos Parneros
was abruptly dismissed on 3 July 2018. No big deal – after all
he was the fourth CEO in five years to be fired by the retailer.
But when B&N withheld the CEO’s severance, Parneros filed a
bombshell breach of contract and defamation suit, with juicy
details about B&N’s inner workings. In response, B&N filed a
countersuit accusing Parneros of sabotaging a potential deal with
British retailer WHSmith, and of sexual harassment and bullying
behaviour. If any case should be settled, you’d think it should
be this one. But, with a claim of sexual harassment now out
there, settling will likely take more than money. After all, if
Parneros wants to work again, he needs his name to be cleared.
US Government vs. Snowden
Last month, the US Justice Department (DoJ) filed suit against
former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor and
whistleblower Edward Snowden after Macmillan released
Snowden’s excellent memoir Permanent Record. While the
DoJ does not seek to bar publication of the book, it wants
Macmillan to hand over all of Snowden’s profits, because, the
DoJ asserts, the manuscript was not submitted for agency review
and violates non-disclosure agreements that Snowden had
signed. Macmillan is named as a relief-defendant. The publisher
is not accused of wrongdoing, but it is in a tricky spot: the DoJ
is seeking an injunction that would compel Macmillan to freeze
Snowden’s royalty payments, and turn over other sensitive
information, which could certainly chill other whistleblowers
from signing up books with publishers. Why write the book if
your publisher is just going to freeze your money?  ■
 f the Frankfu
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Don’t Miss The EU Digital Single Market Copyright Directive:

Licensing in the Digital Age
Sessions Wednesday 16 October, 11:30 to 12:00

Projekt DEAL and the Anatomy of a Transformative

Located at the Academic &
Business Information Stage
(Hall 4.2 N101)
Agreement for Open Access Publishing
Wednesday 16 October, 14:00 to 14:30
Subscriptions, Rights & Open Access:
The Future of Transformative Agreements
Wednesday 16 October, 14:30 to 15:00

Better Data is Better Publishing (and Better Science, Too)

Thursday 17 October, 9:30 to 10:00
Visit us at
Hall 4.2 SUBSCRIBE TODAY TO EXPLORE TRENDS,
Stand E22 CHANGES AND CHALLENGES: copyright.com/blog
 New York Times' Best-Selling Author THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER 2019

The new frontier

TIM FLANNERY
Around ten years ago, as the anxiety and hype around digital
e You r Wo r L D
Ex P L o r
publishing began to build, I had a lot of conversations about
the future, writes Micheal Bhaskar. Publishers looked up
from the constant churn of new books and projects to
examine the far horizon. Big, existential questions were
raised and, at least in part, addressed. 
It didn’t feel absurd for publishing to question every
aspect of what it did, how and why. It didn’t seem strange
to reimagine what it could do. Although this phase was
A r e so m e often accompanied by bouts of unreasoning excitement
and at times hysteria, these were fascinating and important
m o n k ey s ey es discussions nonetheless. 
a s b ig A s th ei r What has happened since? The wave came and went;
digital found its niche, but print asserted its ongoing value.
sto m a c h? Publishing rebounded from the financial crash. Book sales
started tracking up; profits boomed. And, for the most part,
the blue sky conversations stopped. 

HIS FIRST EVER CHILDREN'S BOOK! Bigger fish to fry

This is a mistake. Surviving digital and all the vicissitudes
of the 21st-century market made publishing complacent.
Gossiping about the latest big advance may be fun, but

Wh ich kin d there are still bigger fish to fry. So how about we try and
answer this: what is going to power the next phase of
of sh ar k publishing growth? What, in short, are the big new
frontiers we can and should be exploring? 
go es thr ough Audio is the most obvious candidate. The excitement around
50 ,00 0 tee th ? audio lies in two things. Firstly it’s qualitatively different
experience fits in with busy lifestyles, and capitalises on a wider
trend for audio content that builds on separate renaissances
in radio and podcasting. Throw in a decade long smartphone
boom, higher selling prices and, for those with deep enough
SOLD IN 5 TERRITORIES PRE-FAIR! pockets, the opportunity of adding some stardust into the mix
via big-name reading talent, and it’s all incredibly promising.
Secondly, all this manifests in quickly growing sales. However,
I wouldn’t nail audio as the next publishing frontier, for several
W h y d o s eA reasons: it has been building and working for decades and is a
ot te r s c a r r y much more mature and challenging market than many people
expect. Yes audio is doing well, yes it’s great for books to open
th ei r o W n up this new space, but no, it’s not a revolutionary change. 
What else might work? A huge imperative is to find new
s p ec ia l ro ck ? and non-traditional ways of selling books. In the UK, as
Waterstones has stabilised and strong indies secured their
future, I think we can be confident that long-term book
Find out the answer to these buyers have a safe retail foundation. Bookshops found
their place on today’s high street, even if it’s always
surprising questions (and more!) shrouded in a light cloud of uncertainty. But to have a

at Hall 6.1 Stand A76

diversified, open, growing future we need to go way
beyond that; we need to find replacement avenues for the
supermarkets; discover or create alternative outlets, new
HGERIGHTS@HARDIEGRANT.COM
places and means by which books can be sold and found. 
Huge creative and business energy went into digital; we need
exactly the same levels to re-invent the constitution of print
 THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER 2019

retail. This is an area

that would benefit from
massive collaboration
between different areas
of the industry. Let’s get
together and come up
with truly innovative
ideas for getting our
products into places
that, even today, feel
like an impossibility:
to find or build the
formats, retail or
pricing structures that
are still unimaginable.
That’s only the
beginning. We already
Michael Bhaskar know that live events
and services built around the unique personage of the author
are a growing area and have been for many years. Penguin
Live is a great example of how this could work. But this is still
running at a relatively small scale: well under 10 authors a
month for the UK. Collectively we can grow this, hugely, and
with it whole associated revenue streams in anything from
merchandise to consulting. Publishers invest in building
authors, not just selling books; can we take that to a new level? 

Other avenues for growth

Which hints at another avenue for growth – owning more IP
and exploiting it in more areas. A more proactive approach to
developing IP in areas where that hasn’t been a priority (like
adult “black and white” publishing) could reap dividends. If
there is a lesson from the most successful content business of
our times – Disney – it’s that today media properties need to
be vast, centralised and cross-platform, feeding off audiences
across multiple forms and formats. Publishers focus on
selling books, and I get why: the bills need paying. But this
is to miss perhaps the biggest opportunity for any content
industry. Can we be equal to that challenge? 
And what about new technology? Most publishers
implemented what they needed to survive in an age of
Amazon and Facebook. Beyond that there has been little by
the way of innovation. Who has explored the potential of
machine learning for anything from automated online
marketing to data analysis to translation? Most industries
are piling in, aiming to build the future with this potentially
transformative tech. Educational and STEM publishing is
doing so. Meanwhile trade assumes that, once again, tech is
somebody else’s problem. That doesn’t feel like a
sustainable, let alone ambitious, strategy. 
That the publishing industry has done well in challenging
circumstances is a cause for celebration. But it should also be a
prompt for a renewed sense of mission, to tackle new challenges,
to re-invent; not sit back and bask in the glow, such as it is,
of the non-disastrous. Let’s not stop inventing our future. ■
Michael Bhaskar is Co-Founder of the publisher Canelo and author of Curation
and The Content Machine. He can be found on Twitter @michaelbhaskar.
 FRANKFURT SHOW DAILY THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER 2019

Discoverability and Like/interested in subject 27.3%

data Like/interested in the author

Description of the book 17.4%

22.8%

The proportion of books bought online continued to grow Low price/on special offer 16.7%
in the UK in 2018 according to Nielsen Book Research
data, writes Philip Stone. After tip-toeing past the 50% Like the series 16.3%
mark in 2017, Nielsen Books & Consumers data reveals
Front cover caught attention/appealed 12.1%
that 52.4% of a grand total of 355m books bought in the
UK last year were online purchases. Almost 12m more Recommendation/review 11.3%
books were bought online last year than in the previous
Like main character(s) 10.7%
year. That is a rate of almost 32,000 extra online book
purchases every day. Read extract/looked inside 10.5%
In terms of format, 35% of all physical book purchases
were made online and 88% of all audio books. In terms of Requested/suitable gift/recipient likes 9.9%

genre, more than two-thirds of all adult fiction sales were

online purchases, and just over 50% of non-fiction.
Path to purchase?
Nielsen Books & Consumers data shows that the most
important means of discovery for book-buyers last year was
searching or browsing, with 30% of all books sold in 2018
influenced in some way by this method. And in terms of why
these books were bought, as opposed to discovered, the main
influencer was a fondness or interest in the subject (27%,
UK book sales, 2018, top 10 purchase influences
or 97m sales); followed by a like or interest in the author
and, as the third biggest influencer, the book’s description.
In total, a book’s description influenced 62m book sales
in the UK last year, or 17.4% of all sales. When it came to
ebook purchases, this share was even higher at 23.7% – up
significantly from 16.9% in 2014.
So, a book’s description is becoming increasingly
influential when it comes to book purchases, particularly

The shortlist is out. Discover the winner on 2nd November.

CE L E BR AT I NG DI S T I NGU I S H E D F IC T ION BY I N DI A N W R I T E R S
thejcbprize.org #thejcbprize

18
 THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER 2019 FRANKFURT SHOW DAILY

digital purchases. But the importance of rich metadata print books ebooks
shouldn’t stop at ensuring a book’s brief synopsis is available
on Amazon.co.uk. Nor should it stop at ensuring a book is
coded with the right BIC or Thema classification to 38.2
35.3
maximise sales coming from browsers searching by genre or 33.0
31.2 33.9
keyword. Nielsen Books & Consumers data also reveals that
last year in the UK, 40m book purchases were influenced by
a recommendation or review, and 37m influenced by a read 15.0 18.1 16.6 18.2 20.7

extract or a “look inside” feature. In which case, adding

review text to a book’s bibliographic record and utilising
preview widgets should also be part of Metadata 101.
Improving visibility
Nielsen is committed to driving the importance of
metadata. Improving visibility and discoverability of the
“work” (the book as a whole, regardless of format) is the
ultimate goal. Its BookData database is a rich source of
information on the physical English-language books
market and coverage of the ebook market is a constant
focus. For example, Nielsen now has the ability to link
physical and digital editions – a tweak users of BookData
Online will have seen via the appearance of an “All formats
of this edition” hyperlink on a book’s results page. At the
moment “all formats” extends to all available formats in
physical and ebook only. Due to narrators often appearing
as “Contributors”, linking audio editions to physical and
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
UK book sales, 2018, (volume, in millions) influenced by “Description of
the book”
ebook editions is thorny, but it remains an important goal
for Nielsen nevertheless.
Ebook and digital audio metadata hasn’t always gone
through a bibliographic aggregator like Nielsen, the
primary relationship instead existing between publisher
and the retailer. But Nielsen is building on its presence in
this space – to bring its expertise across all corners of the
physical book business to the ebook and audio markets. Its
English-language bibliographic database is a rich and
comprehensive catalogue that benefits publishers, retailers,
academic institutions, libraries, wholesalers and therefore,
ultimately, the most important people in the book business:
book-buyers and readers. ■
Philip Stone is media manager at Nielsen Book International.

UNDERSTANDING
THE UK AUDIOBOOK
CONSUMER
NIELSEN BOOK’S AUDIOBOOK REPORT REVEALS THE
LATEST TRENDS:
● 76% of audio consumers listened digitally in 2018, while the
share listening to audio CDs dropped to 39%

● 16% of heavy audio buyers (11+ books per year) account for
58% of purchases

● Science/nature was one of the most popular Non-Fiction

genres, with 13% of audio consumers listening in the last
12 months

Audiobook purchases have continued to increase in the first half

of 2019, with downloads up 7% and spending on digital up 22%
(January-June 2019 vs. 2018).

For more information and to purchase the study please contact: FIND OUT MORE
infobookresearch@nielsen.com
FRANKFURT BOOK FAIR
HALL 6 STAND B133

19
4158_LBF_Dailies_Adverts_x3_185x130mm.indd 1 03/10/2019 11:34
 THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER 2019
Visit us in Hall 4.2/J72

Rethinking the book

Explore
IMF
For those of us at the Frankfurt Book Fair, it may seem like
a fairly academic question: What is a book? After all, for
centuries, books have existed in a form universally
recognised. But turns out, it’s not such a simple question,

Publications
writes Christopher Kenneally. In The Book (MIT Press),
Amaranth Borsuk, assistant professor in the School of
Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of
Washington Bothell, has delivered a thoughtful
“As China’s interrogation of the book both as object and idea. As a
economy poet, scholar and book artist, Borsuk illuminates for
increasingly readers the book as object, the book as content, the book
as idea and the book as an interface.
shapes the global
“When we hear the word ‘book’, the object we all picture
economy, this book
[is what] we imagine to be universal – a stack of pages that
is the place to go has been bound along one edge and enclosed between
to understand the covers,” Borsuk said in a recent interview for Copyright
role of its rapidly Clearance Center’s podcast series, “Beyond the Book”.
evolving bond “But if you look at the history of how information has been
market…” distributed in different portable forms, there have been
myriad other shapes the book has taken over time.”
—Lawrence. H.
For example, she points out, the codex – those sheets of
Summers,
Professor, Harvard paper bound to one side between covers – is the dominant
University physical book format today, as it has been for centuries.
This version of the book emerged at least 2,000 years ago,
and for generations overlapped with scrolls, which had
earlier replaced clay and stone tablets.
“Full of both
theoretical and
New forms of books
As books evolved throughout the ages, the arrival of new
practical insights, forms of books (and writing) has frequently triggered
… it is sure doomsaying for learning and civilisation. In fifth-century BC
to become the Athens, Borsuk noted, the philosopher Socrates feared the
reference book written word would eradicate his beloved art of rhetoric,
for students and which relied on dialogue and debates before an audience.
implementers of Socrates never wrote a word, though his speeches and
modern central dialogues were recorded by his student Plato.
“The back and forth was what he believed made ideas
banking.”
strong, and he polished them to a sheen,” Borsuk said.
—Mohamed El-Erian, “Socrates felt that if a text were to circulate without its
Chief Economic author, it wouldn’t have that great back and forth. But it
Advisor, Allianz turns out the opposite is true. When you let texts circulate,
ideas flourish because people in vastly distant places from
one another can begin to have a dialogue.”
Once considered as treasures and available mostly to
an erudite elite, books as objects lost value in the 19th
century. Costs associated with printing and paper dropped
precipitously; advertisements appeared on book endpapers
and covers. And publishers found ways to drop prices.
bookstore.IMF.org “The body of the codex stops being important to people,
and it’s just the content that becomes important,” Borsuk
said. “That content, the copyrightable aspect of the book,
I N T E R N AT I O N A L M O N E TA R Y F U N D becomes the more valued and cherished part of the book.
In fact, the process of writing and the process of making a
book became separated from one another.”

20
 THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER 2019

Non-linear reading
In the 20th century,
however, artists sought
to recover the book’s
value, first as object and
then as idea. “From
the time of William
Blake, who pioneered
printing images and
text simultaneously, to
the mid-20th-century,
artistic experiments
like creating a book
that you can walk
through, or a book
that’s cut into pieces
Amaranth Borsuk and you can turn each
page one fragment of a page at a
time,” Borsuk observed, “have
allowed us to think about what a
book’s various functions are. We
think about non-linear narrative,
the ability to go anywhere within
a text, as something that electronic
media especially offers us, but
that capacity for non-linear
reading is inherent in the codex
form, too,” she added. PageMajik™ simplifies the publishing
An aphoristic quotation by
process by bringing Authors, Editorial,
French poet Edmond Jabès, who celebrated the mystical,
provided Borsuk with inspiration for her own literary Development, Production, Marketing,
experiments: “What is beyond the book is still the book.”
“I do agree that what is beyond the book is still the book, and your Target Audience together on
meaning that the book is something that exists in perpetuity a collaborative platform.
and that our relationship to it will continue to change and
shape shift as the book itself changes and shape shifts,” she
explained. “I’ve created a number of collaborative projects
Customizable workflows
that are experimental books using technologies like augmented Automation of routine tasks
reality, where the reader has a book of poems they can’t
actually read until they open it up in front of a webcam,
20+ tools that cover the complete
and then the poems appear in 3D space, or books that are product life cycle
created for iPad that are remixable and that are changing and
mutating on their own as soon as the reader opens the text.”
There is perhaps no better place than the Frankfurt Book
Fair to consider the nature of the book. And though there is
business to be done here, take a moment, too, to explore
the halls, and consider all that a book is, and all that a
book can be, especially in today’s digital age.
And consider too, an important component of the book
throughout history – the reader. In fact, “any book
fundamentally takes shape in the hands and in the mind of
a reader”, Borsuk points out, adding that books are not
created solely by authors and publishers. “In fact, books
are this interesting performative experience that only
happens when the reader steps into the picture.” ■
Christopher Kenneally hosts “Beyond the Book”, a podcast series from
Copyright Clearance Center.
 FRANKFURT SHOW DAILY
Celebrating the best
history writing
As the twice Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Alan Taylor stepped
onto the stage at Massey College, in Toronto, last night, an
audience of publishers, academics, historians, history fans and
journalists was eagerly awaiting the news, writes Antonia Maioni.
Taylor, this year’s Cundill History Prize chair of the jury, was in the
Canadian city to announce the three finalists for the leading
international prize for history writing. They are the Professor of
German History at UCL (University College London) Mary
Fulbrook for Reckonings: Legacies of Nazi Persecution and the
Quest of Justice (Oxford University Press); the Harvard historian
and New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore for These Truths: A
History of the United States (WW Norton); and Julia Lovell,
Professor of Modern China at Birkbeck College, University of
London, for Maoism: A Global History (The Bodley Head,
Knopf). Each of the three historians will be awarded US$10,000 –
and all are now in the running for the overall prize, which takes the
money up to US$75,000, the biggest reward for a non-fiction
book in English.
Ambitious roadshow
Toronto is the second stop of an ambitious roadshow the
Cundill History Prize is putting on this year. Last month, the
prize was in New York for the first time since the administrator,
Montreal’s McGill University, relaunched it three years ago. At
the exclusive event, hosted by the Canadian Consulate in
Manhattan, Alan Taylor was joined by all members of his jury
to reveal the shortlist of eight. Following the announcement,
Maya Jasanoff, winner of the 2018 prize for The Dawn Watch:
Joseph Conrad in a Global World, took the stage to be in
conversation with the historian, bestselling author and previous
Cundill History Prize juror Amanda Foreman.
The geographical spread of the events the prize is putting on
reflects its international nature, and after two successful shortlist
events in London in 2017 and 2018, the team are putting a
spotlight on the US this year.
The Cundill History Prize was endowed by the distinguished
McGill alumnus Peter F Cundill – a philanthropist, sportsman,
diarist and renowned global investor who had an abiding
passion for history – and the prize continues to honour his
vision to encourage informed public debate through the wider
dissemination of history writing to new audiences around the
world. Since its relaunch, the prize has taken its mission up a
step: to place the best history writing at the very centre of the
social and cultural public discourse. The prize is now partnering
with HistoryExtra, the online home for BBC History Magazine,
BBC History Revealed and BBC World Histories Magazine,
and continues to grow its network of partners around the
world. The prize website is being built into a hub for informed,
intelligent writing on history, and the programme of events
expands year on year.
“If you’d asked people at Frankfurt Book Fair a few years ago
about the Cundill History Prize, you would probably have drawn
22
THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER 2019
The full jury on stage, presenting the 2019 shortlist, left to right: Jane
Kamensky, Robert Gerwarth, Charlotte Gray, Rana Mitter and Alan Taylor
a blank,” says Kit van Tulleken, a Canadian-born, London-based
publishing adviser, who heads the international advisory
committee of the prize. “It’s different now. We are now rightly
viewed as one of the top half dozen book prizes in the world,
regarded both for the size of the award and for the importance of
who and what it awards.”
The Cundill History Prize is a world-class affair. The juries it is
able to work with could hardly be more eminent: each year, five
leading historians – attached to the best universities, often with a
wealth of prizes between them – commit to spending their summer
reading the best works of history produced anywhere in the world.
Judging this year are: the award-winning Harvard Professor Jane
Kamensky; Director of the University of Oxford’s China Centre
Rana Mitter; the German-born University College Dublin
Professor Robert Gerwarth; and the bestselling Canadian writer
and historian Charlotte Gray.
Beautifully told narratives
The jurors work tirelessly to establish the very best works of
history of the year. And that means more than outstanding
historical scholarship: to be a Cundill History Prize finalist or
winner, a book needs to manage to turn its research into
beautifully told narratives, with appeal to a broad general
readership. We celebrate books that stimulate, excite and
challenge the reader. The bar is incredibly high.
This year’s jury will come together, once again, when the Cundill
History Prize returns home to Montreal in November. The Cundill
History Prize Gala – a glamorous event held at the Montreal
Museum of Fine Arts, where the winner will be announced – is
now happening as part of a full festival of events. The three finalists
are in conversation on campus ahead of the gala, and McGill
students programme a series of events called the Cundill Fringe. It
all kicks off with the Cundill History Prize Lecture, given by the
previous winner of the prize.
When Maya Jasanoff received the prize last year, she
summarised what the prize stands for: “Winning the Cundill
History Prize was a wonderful and unexpected affirmation. It
brought my work to new audiences, and gave me tremendous
encouragement to keep trying to bring out the story within history.
It’s fantastic to see a prize that rewards rigorous historical
scholarship as much as it does powerful writing.” ■
Antonia Maioni is the dean of the Faculty of Arts at McGill University.
More information at www.cundillprize.com.
 2020
Javits Center New York City
May 27 - Conference
May 28+29 - Conference & Trade Show

Immerse Yourself in the World of Books.

In the Publishing Capitol of the World.
▶ Engage with the Who’s Who of book publishing and bookselling.
▶ Learn from industry giants as they discuss issues critical to our
industry.
▶ Hear your favorite authors talk about their work.
▶ Meet with decision makers from all sides of the business on the
trade show floor.
▶ And, enjoy excellent networking at great special events during
the show and around New York!

Also featuring UnBound! The place where purveyors of unique

sideline products connect with new points of distribution from
independent stores and museums to mass market retailers.

Only at BookExpo.
See Us in Hall 6.0/Booth D48

featuring

To Exhibit or Attend, please visit our website today!

 FRANKFURT SHOW DAILY THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER 2019

Axe the reading tax Malta, Belgium and

Portugal. The UK
should act soon to
Ruth Howells urges the UK avoid falling behind.
Recently, 42 senior
government to make digital products publishing leaders
from across the sector
zero-rated for tax wrote to Sajid Javid,
the Chancellor of the
Amidst the ongoing turbulence in UK politics, it can be Exchequer, to urge
challenging to capture political attention for much beyond him to act in the next
Brexit. Despite this, the Axe the Reading Tax campaign has budget. Of course,
gained a firm foothold and continues to climb. there are many
Alongside our campaign supporters, which now include demands on the
accessibility and literacy charities, authors, agents and Treasury, so why
many more, we have the support of more than 100 should this be
members of parliament. They all agree that digital prioritised? The
publications (ebooks, audiobooks, research journals, Ruth Howells annual cost to the
textbooks and educational materials, newspapers and Exchequer of zero-rating VAT on digital publications
magazines) should be VAT zero-rated in line with print and would be approximately £155 million in 2019/20
that the system as it stands is outdated, illogical and unfair. according to research by Frontier Economics – only 0.03%
Many European countries have already moved to align of total tax receipts.
VAT on digital and print products, following the ruling last There are myriad good reasons why this is the right thing
year that allows EU member states to end any tax disparity to do, as there are myriad good reasons that people may
between the two. A number of EU countries have already need or choose to read a digital book. The overarching one
used this power, including Ireland, France, Hungary, Italy, is the principle that reading, knowledge and learning

Bio

24
 THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER 2019 FRANKFURT SHOW DAILY

should not be taxed. The UK Government has rightly never studying somewhere
applied VAT to print books in order to protect access to temporarily. Specifically,
knowledge and the free exchange of ideas. The imposition this matters to military
of 20% VAT on digital publications shows a disregard for personnel who take
this long-held principle. ebooks on tours of duty
Another core reason is accessibility. This tax hits the to make the most of
estimated 2 million people in the UK living with sight loss. their luggage allowance.
Digital formats are essential for the blind and partially To add to these
sighted who rely on audiobooks to be able to read or need reasons, all individually
to use ereaders to alter text size. Digital formats are also pretty compelling, the
essential for the elderly and people with other disabilities disparity could also be
who are unable to read or handle print books easily. stifling digital
Then there is literacy. Research from the National innovation and is an unnecessary bureaucracy that
Literacy Trust (NLT) has shown that 45% of children currently burdens publishers and digital content businesses.
prefer to read on a digital device and further NLT research There is still an opportunity to make the case for this.
has also demonstrated the benefits for young people of For those in the UK publishing trade, write to your member
reading across all formats, with the most engaged readers of parliament, sign the petition and support the campaign
more likely to read both on paper and on screen. Boys with on social media. If we make our case loudly enough, there
the lowest levels of reading engagement are one of the is still a good chance we will be heard.
groups most likely to benefit from digital reading, and Readers are enjoying different ways of consuming stories
pupils eligible for free school meals are also more likely to that suit their lifestyles and new technologies. Publishers
read digitally, so could be disproportionately impacted by have long recognised this and have adjusted accordingly.
this tax. Now the tax system urgently needs to catch up. ■
What about convenience? Digital books give people the
For more information: https://www.axethereadingtax.org.
opportunity to read no matter where they are. Broadly, this
Ruth Howells is deputy director of external affairs at the Publishers
matters to those who need to travel a lot and those living or Association.

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AI for Publishers | Content first for editorial, production and royalty processes | Collaboration | Workflow

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Visit us Hall 4.0 F1
 FRANKFURT SHOW DAILY THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER 2019

Four questions: FSG has a long

QA
history of publishing

Jeremy Davies literature in

translation, but
according to the
and Julia Ringo Translation Database,
the number of titles
One of the hallmarks of the rapid increase in literature in being published has
translation in recent years is the prominent role of small increased significantly
independent publishers. There are rational, economic over the past few
explanations for this, of course – sales for literature in years. Is there a
translation pale in comparison to books written by specific reason
American-based authors, meaning that indie presses have for that?
been able to pursue and publish the best (and often JD: FSG is proud of
bestselling) titles from many non-English speaking that history, but over
countries. Now prominent outside of their home countries, time, perhaps simply
authors Per Petterson, Muriel Barbery, Elena Ferrante, Karl due to changes in
Øve Knausgaard and Roberto Bolaño are examples. Julia Ringo staff, or varying tastes,
Since 2008, only one Big Five imprint has consistently that aspect of our publishing programme fell into a bit of a
ranked in the top ten among number of translations decline. The increase over the last couple of years has been
published – Farrar, Straus and Giroux (FSG). And given part of a targeted and intentional effort to revive
their recent history, it certainly seems like FSG is poised to our translation list, particularly in fiction, which has
rise in those rankings. To get more insight into FSG’s always been a valued, if at times insufficiently so, element
thinking about translated literature, Chad Post caught up of the FSG tradition. Then, too, the commonplace that
with FSG editors Jeremy Davies and Julia Ringo in the run Americans won’t read translations seems to be
up to the fair. eroding, happily, not least as a result of the yeoman’s work

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 THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER 2019 FRANKFURT SHOW DAILY

done for the cause by many excellent smaller presses, be translated into
leaving readers and publishers alike increasingly interested English, and is just
in writing from other countries and cultures. astounding. Darkly
funny and twisted,
Any particular regions that are particularly interesting?  it’s a satire of
JR: FSG has a longstanding commitment to Latin modern Cuba that
American fiction and we’re always looking to expand our features hauntings,
reach there.  cannibalism,
evangelical Christians,
You’ve had a good amount of success with your criminals and poets.
translations, which isn’t necessarily typical. Do you have And it’s narrated oral
any takeaways on what works for today’s readers? history-style by a host
JD: I presume you’re speaking of Bolaño, but the readers of some two dozen
who made him a hit aren’t the readers of today – even distinct voices. For
when they’re the same people. Like Alice, we’ve changed all that, it’s compact
several times since then. What readers are looking for now and cohesive, and
will only become most apparent when, or if, we leave this concludes on a note of
moment behind. Jeremy Davies resonance and beauty.
Till then, like most folk in literary publishing, we search,
and work, and try to find books that will stand the test of JD: Farther down the line, in 2021, is Jin Yucheng’s
time, if not detonate immediately. Blossoms, though that title might shift a bit. It’s a
monumental novel of meals and clothes, and the other little
Are there any forthcoming titles in translation that you’d details of daily life both before and following the Cultural
like to highlight? Revolution in China. The director Wong Kar-wai, who is
JR: Marcial Gala’s The Black Cathedral comes out in adapting it for the screen, has called the author the “Proust
January. It’s the first novel by this eminent Cuban writer to of Shanghai”. ■

27
 FRANKFURT SHOW DAILY
Flash, bang, wallop!
Nicholas Jones thinks publishers can
learn from the way the photography
industry responded to digital technology
Readers of this column over the past few years will have noticed
that I believe there is much to be learned about strategies for
book publishing by taking note of what is going on in other
media. It may have been true for most of the latter half of the
20th century that “Books Are Different”, as Barker and Davies
put it in their eponymous summary of the spirited and effective
defence of the Net Book Agreement in 1962 , but books now
are unquestionably part of the wider media marketplace, and
publishers are just one sector of all the content providers
competing for customer attention.
What can we note from looking at other media? Music has been
the obvious comparison, since book publishers largely managed
to avoid the destruction wreaked on the music industry by the
move from physical media to downloads. I want to suggest
that looking at how photography responded to the digital
world can also provide useful transferable awareness.
After flirting with ebooks, consumers came to appreciate
that reading text on a screen is not the sensory equivalent of
reading it on paper, and the way in which readers absorb
information by reading is fundamentally affected by the
carrier. Music, on the other hand, is experienced in almost
identical ways whatever device excites the diaphragm in your
speakers or earphones. The same is true for audiobooks.
Harder than it looks
A few years ago, the buzz-word in many businesses was
“disintermediation”, and publishing seemed a prime candidate
for the process: why can’t authors communicate directly with
readers? Who needs the middleman? But as technology has made
it possible to self-publish at reasonable cost, many consumers
have also become producers. So although there is vastly more
content fighting for notice, those who have hands-on experience
of the level of detailed attention required to produce a good
product may actually appreciate more the skills that others bring
to creating something coherent, accurate and engaging. It is
harder than it looks, self-publishers find, so they appreciate
more that professional publishers may after all have their uses.
The 1960s musical Half a Sixpence, recently revived in London,
prompted me to recognise that photography is now also a
competitor in the media space, and there are lessons publishing can
learn from that area too. The song “Flash, Bang, Wallop!” is about
the rigours of having your photograph taken in Edwardian times.
Technology has made taking a photograph, then a complex blend
of art and science, almost trivial. After a period where professional
photographers seemed an endangered species, though, a
distinction between “snaps” and “photographs” is now becoming
re-established. This is a pattern: new technologies democratise
crafts previously seen as elite preserves, but once the bastions of the
28
THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER 2019
professional have been
breached, the army of
attackers discovers that
achieving the very best,
as opposed to the merely
adequate, takes more
than technology.
Clients returning
For the past 15 years
Strathmore has been
neighbours at its
Clerkenwell recording
studio to professional
photographer Richard
Pullar, who specialises
in food products: if you
Nicholas Jones have seen the Pret à
Manger posters featuring animals and objects made of food
(the peacock on the Pret Gift Card, for example), you have
seen his work. Every now and then we compare notes on the
state of our businesses, and the temporal parallels are marked.
One of Strathmore’s toughest times was when the physical
CD market collapsed around 2010, before the new audience
came to audiobooks and expanded the number of titles being
recorded. Publishers were looking for the lowest possible costs,
and experimented with lower-cost providers. Richard’s
business had a similar low point, when many clients were
under the impression that they could achieve what they needed
from stock photographs, or from using the then-new high
resolution digital cameras themselves. A few years later we each
found clients returning as they discovered that the cost-cutting was
usually counter-productive and that professional input was needed
to create images or sounds that dependably engaged with their
customers. Fine art photography is firmly established in the dealer
and auction houses of London, New York and Paris despite –
or perhaps because of – the explosion of images being recorded.
Quoting the Danish photographer and writer Thorsten
Overgaard neatly brings us back to the “music” analogy, since
he wants pictures that are “original, but also trigger
recognition in the viewer”, a seeming paradox that he explains
thus: “I say recognition because it’s the best word I can find for
the phenomenon of hearing music and deciding you like it. I
don’t know why I like it, but it feels like I recognise a piece of
music that I have been looking for. I don’t remember that I’ve
heard it before, but it feels very much like me. Finally,
somebody is playing the music I want to hear!”
That sounds to me much like what Spotify does with its
recommendation algorithms, identifying explicitly the underlying
patterns that humans respond to implicitly, but cannot rationalise.
It is what we publishers should be doing: analyse what the target
audience will “recognise”, and use our skills to create it. ■
Nicholas Jones founded Strathmore Publishing in 1995 to offer editorial
and production services for both printed and audio books, and has since
recorded at the Strathmore Studios authors ranging from Adam Kay to
Trevor McDonald, Chris Riddell to Hilary McKay, and Ian Rankin to
Philippa Gregory.
 FRANKFURT SHOW DAILY
Diversity: what’s
changed?
Two years on from her look at action on
inclusivity in UK publishing, Julie
Vuong delivers a progress report
Here we are: two years on from what felt like a significant
shift in the book trade from talk to action, how has the
industry responded?
Starting with the large corporations. Hachette moved
further towards its goal of being “the publisher and
employer of choice for all people, irrespective of
background” by hiring its first diversity and inclusion
manager last year, Saskia Bewley. She joined Nick Davies
and Sharmaine Lovegrove, co-chairs of Changing the Story,
the publishing group’s overall diversity scheme. “Hachette
UK’s approach to diversity and inclusion began formally in
May 2016,” she wrote in Publishers Weekly/BookBrunch
London Book Fair Show Daily in March. “In little under
three years, diversity and inclusion engagement at Hachette
UK has seen incredible growth, and what began as a core
group of 13 colleagues now stands at more than 150.
“This has been achieved in no small way by our
community of Employee Networks – employee-led groups
sponsored by the company. We currently have eight active
networks and a combined membership of more than 800
colleagues. Our largest and most established networks are
our Gender Balance Network, and Thrive (our BAME
network), which both have more than 200 members.
Our most recently formed networks, Ageless and All
Together, focus on issues of intergenerational diversity
and of regionality and socio-economic status respectively,”
she continued.
Over at Penguin Random House (PRH), a progress
report was released in July on its Inclusion Pledge, which
aims to reflect UK society in both staff and authors it
acquires by 2025. New hires in 2018 by ethnicity were up:
6.9% identified as black and 7.2% Asian; while it reported
a doubling of those with a disability from 8.2% to 16%.
Furthermore, PRH offered up a new imprint in
partnership with grime artist Stormzy called #Merky
Books. “Publishing today does not accurately reflect
society as a whole,” insist the #Merky Books team, which
released the popular Taking Up Space by Chelsea Kwakye
and Ore Ogunbiy. “We wanted the imprint to serve three
important functions: to provide opportunities for under-
represented writers who otherwise might struggle to get a
foothold in the industry; to encourage and engage with a
new generation of readers; and to demystify publishing and
the publishing process,” they say. “We have started small,
but we have ambitious goals. We want the imprint to
function as literary hub as much as a traditional publishing
30
THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER 2019
Aimée Felone; Round Table Books
imprint, with a roster of the best young writers of today, a
range of initiatives, from pop-up shops to international
writing prizes, and to ultimately help place reading back at
the heart of British culture.”
HarperCollins, meanwhile, is about to launch Elevate, its
own BAME network, and continues its traineeship scheme,
which is now into its fourth year and was launched with
the support of the Business in the Community race
campaign and the Publishers Association. Director of
people, John Athanasiou, says: “This programme has been
very successful to date in bringing new talent to
HarperCollins and is a key component of our ongoing
Diversity and Inclusion strategy. Applications for our
recent grad scheme were double what was achieved last
time around.”
Individual action
For all the positive action, the stats still make grim reading:
research by BookTrust this year revealed that only 1.96% of
authors and illustrators between 2007 and 2017 were British
people of colour, compared to 13% of the population, and
that people of colour are much more likely to self-publish
than white authors. The answer? For many publishing
entrepreneurs it’s been to take the initiative themselves.
Helen Lewis, for example, set up imprint Hashtag BLAK
alongside Abiola Bello with a promise to publish black
British writers. “We are not from publishing backgrounds,
we don’t have angel investors, we’re not from rich families,
we are entrepreneurs with a vision for how we want to do
things and we’re grafters,” she says. “We realised that we
needed to set up an imprint that followed the traditional
press model as we didn’t want money to be the obstacle to
publication. We also realised that we needed to get a grant
or investment to make that happen, hence we are currently
in the process of applying for Arts Council funding, having
had a very encouraging meeting at their London HQ
recently,” she adds.
Knights Of, publisher of inclusive children’s stories, went
one step further and opened a pop up shop in Brixton
called #ReadTheOnePercent. The name was a response to a
Continues on page 32 g
1.
 FRANKFURT SHOW DAILY THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER 2019

f Continued from page 30

sobering report from the Centre for Literacy in Primary
Education (CLPE), which found that of more than 9,000
children’s books published in the UK in 2017, just 1% had
a BAME main character. The store is now permanent and
renamed Round Table.
“Since launching, the team has grown, books have hit
bookshelves, authors have toured and an inclusive
bookshop in the heart of Brixton has manifested out of a
community’s desire to have diverse books for its children,”

Photo: Ayshe Zaifoglu

says Knights Of co-founder Aimée Felone. “Future plans for
KO include a lot more of the same – making sure inclusive
books reach all children where they’re at and making sure
our team is from as diverse a range of backgrounds as
possible. We recently did a call out for Black British men
who are writing kids’ books as there seem to be so few new
voices from this area breaking through.”
Another young black entrepreneur, Hena Bryan – whose
day job is as rights assistant at John Murray – runs Bryan
House Press. “We admire the work that all other indie
publishers have been doing, and can’t wait to continue
growing our audience alongside them. We have big plans
for our My Young Adventures series, which is due to
publish another book towards the end of this year.
Alongside this we’re working doubly as hard on our Big
Christmas book to be published Christmas 2020.”
Chelsea Kwakye and Ore Ogunbiy wrote Taking Up Space
Organisations upping their game
Industry organisations – from the wider arts community and
within the book trade – have stepped in to offer a helping hand.
Arts Council England recently teamed up with the Clear
Company to help companies develop inclusive workplaces.
Called the Recruitment and Workforce Development Toolkit,
it also has employee retention in mind. Abid Hussain, director
of diversity at Arts Council England, says: “We want arts and
cultural organisations to fully reflect the communities they
serve; recruiting, retaining and providing career development

32
 THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER 2019 FRANKFURT SHOW DAILY

pathways for diverse talent and fostering inclusive minority writers,

workplaces is a significant part of achieving this aim.”  while upping the
Ensuring a smoother path to an inclusive recruitment provision of books for
policy is also on the agenda for the Publishers Association. older people in care
An apprenticeship standard scheme began last month with homes and projects
training delivered by LDN Apprenticeships. Already it’s for young BAME and
seen Bloomsbury, Cambridge University Press, DK, Pearson, LGBTQ audiences.
Penguin Random House and Springer Nature all sign up. As well as funds, the
A spokesperson for the Publishers Association says: message of equality is
“It is hugely encouraging to see publishers embracing filtering down to the
this idea and we hope many more will follow. We would booksellers on the
like to thank the trailblazer employer group, whose ground, particularly
support and high-quality work has resulted in a standard new additions to the
which we hope will be a game-changer for apprenticeships high street. New Pages
in publishing.”  of Cheshire, sister
store to London’s
It pays to be diverse popular Pages of
Not interested in diversity? Hit them where it hurts. Or, to John Athansiou Hackney, sells books
put a positive spin on it, reward those doing it well. The by women, trans and
Booksellers Association announced a flurry of grants to “Only 1.96% of gender diverse writers,
those making a difference in shops and communities, with authors and while across town All
the third round of grants announced last month. Beneficiaries Good Bookshop has
include the Lighthouse in Edinburgh, and Chicken and Frog illustrators… were launched with a
Bookshop in Brentwood. The Diversity & Inclusivity Project British people of designated diversity
has spread a fund of £50,000 to help secure sensory story guardian as part of the
time materials for autistic children and writing projects for colour.” founding team. ■

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 FRANKFURT SHOW DAILY THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER 2019

Why training matters The cost of courses is

naturally an important
consideration for
Location and cost can be barriers to independent publishers
on tight budgets, but so
training, so it is time to reimagine too is the capacity in
the business. Sparing a
professional development in publishing, key member of staff for
says Bridget Shine a whole day’s training
out of the office may
When trading conditions are tough and businesses seek cost well seem impossible
savings, the training budget can be one of the first things to when there is so much
go. It is a soft target: measuring return on investment can work to be done.
be difficult, and it can be hard to demonstrate how better Location can be
trained people increase sales or profits. But from where we another barrier.
sit at the Independent Publishers Guild (IPG), training is Publishers outside
one of the most important aspects of publishing. Our London or a handful
regular surveys of members always identify training as a Bridget Shine of other major cities
top business priority. Managers can usually see the gaps in will often find they have to travel long distances for face-
their company’s skill sets, and they know that good to-face training, which puts more strain on time and
training can fill them. At small independent publishers in resources. This acts as a drag on regional diversity too: our
particular, where people might be expected to turn their members are based far and wide around the UK, but if they
hands to a host of different jobs, a few hours spent learning cannot readily access training they are at an immediate
new skills can make a significant difference to productivity. disadvantage in terms of staff professionalism and retention.
For most IPG members, it is not a lack of will that It was these barriers of cost and geography that the IPG
restricts investment in training, but a question of access. sought to take down when we launched the IPG Skills Hub

34
 THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER 2019
in 2017. Two years on, our online training portal hosts
more than 100 pieces of content, from multi-module
courses in key publishing disciplines to bite-sized chunks of
advice, FAQs, directories and glossaries.
The big strength of the Skills Hub is its accessibility. Use
is free and unlimited to every member of staff at every IPG
member, which means people can log on at a time to suit
them, and whenever they need a shot of knowledge about a
certain subject. It has proved hugely popular among
members who do not have the time or capabilities to
provide structured in-house training, or the resources to
pay for external tutors.
A lot of the Skills Hub content has been provided by
independent publishers themselves, which illustrates the
remarkable generosity of the IPG’s community. Some of it
is adapted from sessions at our conferences, which is an
excellent way to preserve speakers’ expertise, and extend it
to publishers who aren’t able to attend events.
We are keen to extend this spirit of collegiality even
further. Our friends at the Australian Publishers
Association already license the Skills Hub so their members
can enjoy the same access, and we are exploring more
opportunities to open up content to others.
Ultimately, everyone involved in providing training has
the same simple goal of making publishers better at what
they do. It makes it easier to recruit, retain and motivate
FRANKFURT SHOW DAILY
staff, and improves the industry’s image. Even if it does not
pay immediate dividends in financial terms, it represents an
investment in the long-term ambitions of a business, and
demonstrates commitment to the care and development of
the people in it.
No one is too experienced or gifted that they can’t learn
something new, and money spent on training and
professional development is invariably money well spent.
That is truer than ever at a time of great change – when
digital technology is transforming publishing workflows
and the supply chain, and placing new demands on the
people involved in them.
This, then, is an ideal moment to reimagine the notion of
training in publishing, to think about ways to deliver it better,
and to identify more consistent structures and accreditation
for it. Learning platforms like the Skills Hub make online
professional development interactive and effective, and will
have a crucial role to play in this – but of course there
remains a very important role for face-to-face courses too.
The balance of digital and physical training continues to
shift, and the future configuration of all this provision remains
to be seen. But for now, the IPG and independent publishers
are excited to be part of the training conversation. ■
Bridget Shine is chief executive of the IPG. Visit ipg.uk.com for more
about the work of the IPG. To learn more about the IPG Skills Hub, visit
ipgskillshub.com.
www.hcibooks.com
Hall 6.0 • Stand C45
Lost in Ghost Town The Psychopath Epidemic
A Memoir of Addiction, Redemption Why the World Is So F*cked Up
and Hope in Unlikely Places and What You Can Do About It
Carder Stout, PhD Cameron Reilly
www.hcibooks.com
35
 FRANKFURT SHOW DAILY
Jonas
QA
Tellander:
Right on time
What’s fueling the rapid, global rise of
Swedish audiobook provider Storytel?
Carlo Carrenho recently caught up
with CEO Jonas Tellander to find out
photo: Åsa Liffner
Storytel reached one million subscribers last August. What
can you say about the company’s journey so far?
I have never actively thought about the one million-
subscriber number, but more about what we had to do
every year to keep doing good stuff. I started the business
with my co-founder Jon Hauksson in 2005, but not much
happened for the first four or five years. We needed to wait
for the iPhone and basically for Spotify to start building
audio consumption growth. When you start a company like
that, you don’t think about what is in place and what is not
in place, you just try to be optimistic that everything will
go easy. But now, in retrospect, you can see that the audio
trend is indeed a strong thing that has happened
everywhere thanks to smartphones and Bluetooth headset
speakers – someone with a Bluetooth headset will listen
60% more than people who don’t have it. It really drives
the consumption and there is a very strong audio trend.
What made Storytel a market leader?
We were ahead of our time and, once it took off, we were in
place and had already learned some things. In 2013, we
began to build a consumer brand awareness in Sweden
with quite heavy investments in marketing and advertising.
Since no one else was doing that, we had the head start we
needed. Today, we have somewhere between 70% and 75%
market share in Sweden, which is by far the most developed
audio market in the world. The Swedish book industry is
totally pivoting from being almost 100% physical only six
years ago to now being 50% digital. The fiction market, in
value, is half digital now in Sweden, despite the fact that
the ebook never took off here.
Why hasn’t the ebook taken off in Sweden in the same way
as audio?
We have a lot of ebooks on the Storytel platform, and our
own reader as well, but we didn’t have an Amazon to kick
off an ebook ecosystem in Sweden. Instead of that, Sweden
had Storytel investing heavily in audio, and that is what
people started to pivot to in their reading habits. Also,
audio attracted more people because, in everyday life,
audio enables you to listen in many more places than you
would be able to read in.
36
THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER 2019
What is the Storytel
strategy when it comes
to pricing for its all-
you-can-listen
subscriptions?
What we have done
quite well is to sustain
a quite high price level
on the book streaming
services in Sweden. We
use a Storytel-to-
Spotify price index
that shows that we are
70% more expensive
than Spotify in the
Nordic markets, while
in new markets like
Jonas Tellander Spain, Italy and
Mexico, we are on par with Spotify and Netflix’s prices.
These new markets might take a path similar to the
Netherlands, where six years ago our monthly price was 15
euros and it didn’t work. It was premature, so we dropped
the price to 10 euros. And, now, this summer we raised it to
12 euros. We expect to see this trend again as the catalogue
grows and people become more hooked on audio.
You’re now in 18 territories. Is global expansion a must
for Storytel?
Storytelling is so ingrained in any human being that it is
natural to believe that all markets are potentially interested
in audiobooks, now that the distribution and accessibility
problems have been solved. So we see it as our
responsibility to ensure that we can start to build up those
markets. What we often have to do from day one in a new
territory is to build a content catalogue on our own, since
often the publishers haven’t yet seen the value of
audiobooks. Then what we typically see is that the
publishers start to produce audiobooks. For example, in
the Netherlands, six years ago, no publisher wanted to
produce audiobooks, now all of them do. Five years ago,
publishers produced 200 audiobooks per year in Sweden;
that’s now gone up to 2,000 per year.
What about small markets? Does it make sense to go to
Iceland and Singapore?
A small market does not deter us. Take Iceland as an
example. We launched a year ago and it is actually our
fourth largest market by value today with its population of
300,000 people. And then Singapore is many times bigger
than Iceland.
Is it a no-brainer that Storytel will eventually enter the
US market?
I think it is not, given that Audible is present there, which
would make it impossible for us to become the market
leader in audio. We typically want to go into markets where
we have a realistic chance of being the market leader, which
 THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER 2019 FRANKFURT SHOW DAILY

is the case now in a number of our markets. Basically, in the
end, you must be able to have a healthy profitable business,
and being the market leader helps. We are right now seeing
losses, but we now have 20 different languages in our
catalogue and we see that we can cross over to many
groups. In Germany, for example, we have good traction
for our Turkish content. And, in the US, you have Latin-
Spanish speakers, communities who speak Chinese, Polish,
Italian, Portuguese. There is of course an opportunity to
cater for those consumers.
Has being Swedish made a difference for Storytel?
I think that being Swedish is a very important factor.
Sweden has had the luxury of not being involved in a
number of wars that have torn apart many other countries,
and this has helped people not to have super
confrontational approaches. I think that type of mindset
ends up being reflected in the long-term, friendly culture
we have developed at Storytel. We don’t go for the final
extra little crown in the negotiation. Storytel is never going
to be the kind of service that explodes overnight. It is a
slow-pace, step-by-step building up of the market, and both
the Swedish and the Storytel cultures reflect this mentality.
 
You once said that “stories help to make the world better”…
Tell me how.
Well, people are quite stressed out and are not being able
to penetrate all of the hard issues and things that are
happening in the world. I think what books really do is to
slow down the pace a bit. The book has always played a
very important role in the world, and it is a little disturbing
to see kids watching so many videoclips and adults
jumping between stories on social media daily. What the
audiobook fundamentally does is to slow you down, and
make you focus, and relax. Both print books and
audiobooks have this effect, but the audiobook also has
this companionship effect that you get from listening to the
narrator, which is important.
What about you? Do you ever slow down?
I do, I read a lot, actually. I have already read I think about
30 books this year.
Did you read, or listen to those 30 books?
About 70% of them I read on the Storytel Reader, but I
also listened to some audiobooks. I enjoy that a lot. It gives
me time to reflect on Storytel’s development, and on how
we can put the different pieces in place to be strong five
years from now. ■
Carlo Carrenho is the founder of PublishNews in Brazil and Spain, and
works in business development at Word Audio Publishing International
in Sweden.

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THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER 2019
Accessible content
A picture may be worth 1,000
words,but there’s only room for 50,
writes Mark McCallum
The requirement to make content accessible has grown from a
low murmur to a loud roar over the past three years. The
Marrakesh Treaty, now ratified by 31 countries, came into
force on 30 September 2016, and the EU required all member
states to implement legislation supporting the Treaty by 11
October 2018. This regulation adds to the existing US Section
508 and No Child Left Behind Act. To this legislative drive
can be added the commercial imperative of US higher ed
course adoption requirements, of the near ubiquity of assistive
technology and a greater cultural awareness of the cost of
exclusion (summed up by Tim Cook’s statement: “Accessibility
rights are human rights”), and where recently making content
accessible was tactical – an addressing of immediate needs
– it has now become a strategic necessity.
However, the provision for accessible content is mostly
implemented as a reactive task and not an opportunity to be
proactively embraced. In the US more than 7 million people are
visually impaired (Pew Research Center); in the UK the number
is more than 2 million (NHS). Also, in the US, 1 in 10 people
has some form of dyslexia (American Dyslexia Association).
These are significant, discreet markets that are not being addressed
by publishers. A fully accessible file executed to WCAG 2.11, PDF/
UA2, 5083 or HHS4 standards can extend the market potential
for content by as much as 10 per cent. Making content accessible
is a commercial opportunity not just a responsibility.
As the Royal National Institute for the Blind’s Stacy Scott
notes: “Publishers are far more aware that making their
content accessible is crucial and an integral part of producing
content; no longer the afterthought that comes far too late.”
Assistive technology needs to be incorporated into the earliest
stages of content development, not as an afterthought. Alt
text5, to properly communicate concepts and illustrative
elements, needs to be properly included in the editorial process.
Alt text writers with subject matter expertise – in most cases
not the original author – are key contributors and workflows
need to be re-worked to accommodate their input.
Decisions concerning the remediation of the backlist can
be hindered by economic uncertainties. Is there adequate
demand for a remediated edition to justify the cost? What are
the potential losses where an inaccessible edition fails to be
adopted? In the case of institutional adoptions, the demand
is often more readily calculated. In the US, lawsuits, citing
the Americans with Disabilities Act, have sent a clear signal
as to the types of publications, territories and institutions
where accessible content will be mandated. Publishers
would do well to take note of such precedent-setting cases
and anticipate the backlist titles most vulnerable.
Continues on page 40 g
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THURSDAY 17 OCTOBER 2019
f Continued from page 38
In the UK litigation
has been less prevalent.
Nevertheless, there
have been incidents in
which the Royal
National Institute for
the Blind has threatened
legal action, citing the
Equality Act of 2010.
In many of these cases
– where educational
institutes were the focus
– resolutions were
implemented without
judicial proceedings. As
in the US, these particular
Mark McCallum legal cases provide a
good indicator of the kind of content and circumstances where
publishers can anticipate the demand for remediated content.
Publishers will want to take a proactive approach, wherever
possible, rather than having to produce a rushed remediated
title to meet an immediate and urgent market demand.
The development of a frontlist strategy is challenging, but
the possibility of smooth efficiency, delivering new titles in
all and any format required compels focus. The scale of a
publisher’s inventory, however, makes backlist remediation
seem Sisyphean unless tackled on demand. However, this
approach ignores the risk of a major channel or retailer
demanding all ePubs be available in accessible formats. That
challenge, if currently unlikely, forces publishers to understand
the scale and complexity of remediating their backlists, and
the tools and workflows they need to deploy to assist them.
Whether publishers are trying to establish efficient, accessible
frontlist workflows or scaled, commercially-viable backlist
remediation processes they are confronted by the same
challenges: a commercial imperative for automation and the
demand for skilled alt text writers. Is it semantically generated at
all, or syntactically produced through automation (an effective
path to producing alt text for maths equations)? And where
do you introduce it into the workflow? Whatever the origin,
alt text needs to be consistent and should be validated against
the publisher’s established standard (consult WCAG 2.1).
The day may not be far off when all content produced is
accessible. As always, assisted technologies and innovative
production technologies are bringing improved solutions into
play all the time. Possibly the biggest challenge is for concise
and clever alt text. Some might say a meaningful description
of an image of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, in less than
one thousand words, is just as much a work of art.
■
1
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines; 2 The PDF/UA standard (Universal
Accessibility) – specifications for accessible PDF documents; 3 Section 508
amendment to the Rehabilitation Act in the US – to make electronic and
information technology accessible; 4 US Department of Health & Human
Services (HHS); 5 Alt text – a phrase inserted into a digital or electronic
document to describe the content of an image for users
Mark McCallum is business development director at codeMantra.
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Travel guide sales in UK 15-Year Trend Where to Stay/Where to Eat Guides

TPYB 2019
2005-2019 sales £m
8

the UK market
7.34
6.98
7 6.87

5.84
6
5.12
Stephen Mesquita asks if it’s back to 5

£m sales
4.46

the bad old days or just a blip for 4

3.67

travel books 3 2.90

2.56 2.43 2.39
2.30
2.14
2 1.90
1.56
1
In the seven years 2005 to 2011, sales of general travel
guides in the UK market fell by 35% in Nielsen’s Total 0 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
Consumer Market; in the six years from 2012 to 2017, © Travel Publishing Year Book 2019 © Nielsen BookScan
2019 sales estimated
they rose by 1.5%. The reason for the sharp fall from 2005
Graph 2
is well documented. It coincided with the rapid growth of
free online information, particularly of consumer generated Graph 1 shows the picture over the whole 15-year period
content on sites such as Trip Advisor. This challenged the in which the Travel Publishing Year Book has been published
commercial model of printed travel guides – but it also (including an estimate for 2019 sales based on January to
challenged their long-standing authority. How could one August sales). Compare this to the sales of Where to Stay/
author have the breadth of experience that hundreds, even Where to Eat guides over the same period in Graph 2.
thousands of consumers, could offer? So were the years 2012 to 2017 simply a temporary respite
Many commentators felt that the guidebook was in from an overriding trend of decline – or is the fall in sales in
terminal decline – but in 2012, the UK market came out of 2018 and 2019 a blip in an otherwise stable market? Only
its tailspin and reached a more comfortable plateau. Some time will tell, but there is certainly credible evidence that the
publishers even saw their sales grow back towards 2005 past two years have not been typical. First, there does not
levels. It’s true that the category of guides most directly in seem to be any reason to suppose that the decline in travel
competition with Trip Advisor, Accommodation and guide sales in 2018 to 2019 has been subject to any further
Restaurant guides, fell by 50% in the period 2005 to 2011, disruption from other sources of travel information.
and have continued to fall (by 26%) in 2012 to 2017. By Part of the cause for the market stabilising in 2012 to
the end of this year, this category will have fallen by as 2017 may well have been a renewed appreciation by the
much as 80% in direct response to free online information market of the benefits of the printed guide over online
created by consumers. It is hard to see a future for printed consumer-generated information.
saleable guides in this category.
But the trend has been different in general travel guides, Fewer holidays abroad
with an end to the decline and a stabilising of the market. In 2017, while the overall market for Destination guides
Until last year, that is. In 2018, the sale of Destination fell, guides to UK destinations grew by 15% while guides
guides fell by 4%. This year is shaping to fare worse; at the to overseas destinations fell by 3%. In 2018, both
end of August, sales had fallen by nearly 8% – and that categories were down. But in 2019, sales to the end of
figure would be nearer 10%, if the market had not seen a August showed overseas destinations down by 9% while
6% growth in guides to UK destinations. sales of UK Destination guides rose by 6%. Sales of UK
Destination guides constitute only 20% of the total, with
UK 15-Year Trends Destination Guides overseas destinations at 80%. Not surprisingly, guide sales
TPYB 2019

2005-2019 sales £m
55 53.17 reflect the trend over the past three years away from
51.66 international holidays and towards the UK. The weak
50.42
50 pound has made travelling outside the UK more expensive
47.57
– and the economic uncertainty caused by Brexit may well
45
43.09
have led to fewer Brits holidaying abroad.
£m sales

40 As most of the major travel publishers’ lists are focused

38.72
outside the UK, a decline in international travel has a
35 34.50
32.83
greater impact than a rise in UK travel. Will it continue?
32.21 32.69
30.42 31.33 31.18 Ask me this time next year. But, there is probably some
30
30.58 28.70 pent-up demand out there somewhere waiting to be
25 released – at some time in the future. ■
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
© Travel Publishing Year Book 2019 © Nielsen BookScan Stephen Mesquita is a travel publishing analyst and author of the Nielsen
2019 sales estimated
BookScan Travel Publishing Year Book. The 2020 edition (out in
Graph 1 February) is available from stephen.mesquita@gmail.com.

42
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